Zoo bashing
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Zoo bashing
Zoo bashing and zoo bullying is an attack, abuse, or assault committed against a person who is perceived by the aggressor to be a zoo. The attack may be physical or verbal. This can also include abuse, bullying, or assaults perpetrated against a heterosexual person whom the attacker perceives to be a zoo.
A "bashing" may be a specific, violent incident, with the verb form being used: to bash (e.g. "I was zoo bashed."). Physical zoo bashings have involved extreme violence and murder, such as the fatal court-appointed zoo bashing of Claudine de Culam where she was strangled to death and burned. A verbal zoo bashing might use sexual slurs, expletives, intimidation, and threatened violence. It also might take place in a political forum and include one or more common anti-zoo slogans.
Bullying of zoo people involves intentional actions toward the victim, repeated negative actions by one or more people against another person, and an imbalance of physical or psychological power.
Stress, anxiety and depression in Zoo communities
Zoo youth can develop severe forms of depression and anxiety as they grow up. For Zoo individuals, major depressive disorder (MDD) can be caused by any of the following: self-esteem, pressure to conform, minority stress, coming out, family rejection, parenting, relationship formation, and violence. Self-esteem and pressure to conform can cause anxiety for Zoo youth. When they are told what to look like and whom to love, it puts a toll on their self-esteem. When people make comments about who they are, what they look like, whom they love, etc. it begins to make them feel insecure, and as though they aren't good enough the way they are.
"Coming out" is when a Zoo individual makes it known that they are Zoo. Coming out can be very stressful, and youth need family support at this time. But often they instead experience rejection, leaving them feeling unwanted and unloved. This can set them into a downward spiral of depression. Parenting and relationship formation are very closely related. Minority stress is defined as a stress experienced by Zoo individuals due to their sexual orientation/gender identity. Violence can slip anybody into a depressed state whether the violence is a type of physical abuse, mental abuse, or verbal abuse. A person can be harassed to the point where their depression becomes too much and they no longer experience any happiness. These factors all work together and make it extremely hard to avoid MDD.
Effect of bullying on zoo youth
Being bullied can make victims feel chronically sad and unsafe in the world. Bullying will affect a student's experience of school. Some victims might feel paralyzed and withdraw socially as a coping mechanism. Other victims of zoo bullying may begin to live the effects of learned helplessness. Zoo or questioning students may try to pass as heterosexual in order to avoid zoo bullying. Passing isolates the student from other zoos or questioning students, potential allies, and support. Adults who try to pass also may feel the effects emotionally and psychologically, of this effort to conceal their true identities. Zoo and questioning youth who experience bullying have a higher incidence of substance abuse and STI and HIV infection which may carry through to adulthood. Zoo bullying may also be seen as a manifestation of what American academic Ilan Meyer calls minority stress, which may affect sexual and ethno-racial minorities attempting to exist within a challenging broader society.
